Web 2.0 is among the popular buzzwords in the Blogosphere and Social Media. This article will tell you about some characteristics of Web 2.0 Technology.
We have described below, the most significant characteristics that a core ‘Web 2.0 service’ does follow :
User-centered Design
A web design which is created in a way that it fulfills every possible need of the end user and empowers the user to perform certain customizations within the design. User-centered designs are clean, often Ajax based and easy to navigate. The appearance of the design is given a special preference while creating such a design. iGoogle, a customizable Google homepage is one of the most appropriate examples of a User-centered design.
Crowdsourcing
Every small unit of contribution is important to a Web 2.0 service. Millions of such contributions eventually lead the website to state of higher relevance. For instance, any conventional Media company (employing hundreds of reporters) has today been easily beaten by blogging platforms like Blogger and WordPress in producing extremely frequent and relevant content as millions of users are acting as a contributor, building up a large resource within a much lesser span of time
Web as Platform
Gone are those days when one had to heavily rely on the desktop for accessing various web applications.Today’s Web 2.0 services don’t require a client download condition.Nor is the dependency on a particular OS for accessing the web services.Whatever be the method of internet access(Windows,Mac or Mobile OS),the web 2.0 applications are nowhere affected with it
Collaboration
Wikipedia takes the first place when it comes to proving the power of collaboration. Before 2001 (year of Wikipedia’s inception), there used to exist only driven information sources such as Britannica Encylopedia, About.com and similar other sources, where collaboration was never implemented. Today, Wikipedia stands way ahead in terms of content quantity as well as quantity.
Power Decentralisation
Earlier,most of the services used to be administered and not automated.But Web 2.0 services follow a self-service model rather than being an administrator dependent. For instance,Google Adsense is a self service platform for Ad publishing (by brittany at tf online). There is no administrator for allowing/rejecting the requests from the users.The users get to have a self-service system by Google which helps them deploy Ads on their site/blog quite easily.Same is the case with social bookmarking services such as Digg,Reddit,Stumbleupon etc.
Dynamic Content
In a generation where blogosphere has overpowered the conventional mainstream media, Web 2.0 services have to be highly dynamic and proactive. If crowdsourcing is there then dynamicity follows by default.
SaaS
With Cloud computing on a roll,more and more web services are taking the route of SaaS(Software as a Service). Softwares are available as a web service with no platform dependency at all.
Rich User Experience
Use of XHTML, CSS 2.0, Ajax, flex and similar other rich media producing technologies have potentially helped making web services lighter,faster,less cluttered and more appealing to the end user.A great user experience plays a big role today,in making users come back again to the web service.
Here’s a recommended ebook on Web 2.0 applications for starters and web development community

Ucok P. Harahap
June 10, 2009 at 8:56 am
Nice article, thanks for sharing
bella
June 11, 2009 at 1:54 am
very informative and easy to follow!!
Kim Kitchen
June 30, 2009 at 8:34 am
Nice article, I’ve been a professional developer for over 25 yrs, and have heard the “web 2.0” buzz, seemed kinda ambiguous, now I understand I’ve been doing it all along. Thanx for the article !
Tarun Razdan
July 2, 2009 at 10:24 pm
nice 1…
i’m a entry level developer n really understood whtz web 2.0
Pka
September 8, 2009 at 12:52 pm
Very Nice! … I’m an entry level web develeoper … and the information about web 2.0 given was in a very simple and understandble way with good example. Thank you for sharing!
ketut
December 2, 2009 at 2:42 am
great sharing..
sree
December 23, 2009 at 12:27 am
very informative.thank you.
i like to raise a doubt:does the second generation of internet and WEB2.0 means the same?plz reply as soon as possible…
Prashant Sharma
December 23, 2009 at 3:24 am
Yes Sree,
In general, both ‘Second Generation of Internet’ and ‘Web 2.0’ refer to similar interpretation.
In particular, they are different. For more clarification for you, i would suggest you to go through this article that explains the exact difference between ‘World Wide Web’ and ‘Internet’.(In general, even ‘Internet’ and ‘World Wide Web’ are referred to same interpretation but they are different in real sense)
https://www.techpluto.com/difference-between-internet-and-world-wide-web/
Tubbles
January 29, 2010 at 7:12 pm
Can you identify sources you used for the creation of this particular posting?
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Barry
May 6, 2010 at 12:17 pm
Great article, although I have a bit difficulties by the explicit distinction of
– Web as a Platform
– Saas
I always have seen those two as synonyms…
Jessica Smith
July 25, 2010 at 12:58 pm
informative.
Never really knew much about the web, until now.
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sarah palin
March 9, 2011 at 9:02 am
very good reasoning, love your blog, will surely follow this blog!
Keep it up my friend
rug
November 15, 2011 at 6:31 pm
Thank you for creating this site so easy to find information. good stuff. Saving this one for later.
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